© EPA
Readers, a small detective story. Note down this number: MFG BGM-71E-1B. And this number: STOCK NO 1410-01-300-0254. And this code: DAA A01 C-0292. I found all these numerals printed on the side of a spent missile casing lying in the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern
Aleppo last year.
At the top were the words "Hughes Aircraft Co", founded in California back in the 1930s by the infamous Howard Hughes
and sold in 1997 to Raytheon, the massive US defence contractor whose profits last year came to $23.35bn (£18bn).
Shareholders include the Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. Raytheon's Middle East offices can be found in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Kuwait.
There were dozens of other used-up identical missile casings in the same underground room in the ruins of eastern Aleppo, with sequential codings; in other words,
these anti-armour missiles - known in the trade as Tows, "Tube-launched, optically tracked and wire-guided missiles" - were not individual items smuggled into Syria through the old and much reported CIA smugglers' trail from Libya.
These were shipments, whole batches of weapons that left their point of origin on military aircraft pallets.
Comment: Israel is disappointed. How terrible to have a 'you're not special' reality check. How terrible to be left out of the US financial agenda, though outright-gifted billions each year to make military equipment it sells for a profit.
The Japan Times: US has exempted certain steel products from Japan, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and China from 25% import duties.
Quartz says: Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, and the EU would be exempted from the 25% tariff on steel and the 10% duty on aluminum.